Paul Hartal

Endangered Species: The moon

Dear Moon, Old faithful friendof lovers and romantics, you are our nearest celestial body, a main distance of 238,857 miles from Earth, with a lunar globe diameterOf 3473 kilometers, and nevertheless, we can hide you by a fingerheld at arm's length.

Dear Moon, Only natural satellite of Earth, You move in a slightly elliptical orbitWith a period of sidereal revolutionIn 27 days,7 hours,43 minutesAnd 11.5 seconds, But I still have some concernsDeep down in my heart.

An untold variety of lunar seas, oceans, craters and mountainscover your face, and, along with the Sun, You cause the tidal action, too.

And, o, dear Moon, You are always opaque, and you are only visible to us, because the Sun and Earthlightilluminate your surface.But this is not a serious problem.

On the other hand, well, dear Moon, last night I was somewhat anxious, as the shadows were growingon the ceiling of my roominto strange fairy tales. So I went carefully to the windowand saw your enigmatic crescentof your visible face.

And then I uttered a sigh of relief: You were still there!

Still my dear Moon, I read that in time to come You might be redesignedAnd turned into somethingentirely different from today.

Blueprints for Lunar settlementsare already in the works on designers' tablesand in the futurecities built by astronautswill gyrate and revolve restlesslyin aloof outer space.

And so soonerthan we would think, the nightcould be illuminated by artificial light, emanating from contrived satellites.

And then dear Moon, perhaps, You will feel that you arenot needed anymore and on a long white nightYou might even decideto leave us entirely alone, relocating to another cosmic arena and becoming less than an illusionof coded image on the retina.

Comments about this poem (Endangered Species: The moon by Paul Hartal )

What an enchanting besieging work, at first I read this as a literal description of the moon, but I can see untertones of something more meaningful then that. The moon inspires great works about love, if we were to loose her what mysteries of the nights would we have to look at, but the distant stars. Great work Paul, much appreciated
(Report)Reply